Gumption
by BlakeM.D
Summary: Dear Not-A-Diary, today I killed my three-hundredth walker with a book. I also stepped on a nail, but it wasn't rusty, so I probably won't die from it, which is nice. The number of walkers at the fence keeps growing, I still miss home, and I haven't quite figured out if my gun did or did not speak to me last night, but on the plus side, Beth smiled at me today. All in all, a win.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: All recognizable characters, location, and plot lines belong to their legal owners; everything else is mine, through the international law of dibs. No profits are earned from this work of fiction.**

Forty-_eight!_

Forty-_nine!_

_Fifty!_

Fifty-_one!_

My arms, streaked with the occasional faded line of red, telling of the less than fantastic day I'd had before this one, quivered in exertion as I hefted myself up and away from the garish school floor; its colorful, confetti-on-blue design stirring up memories from my own time in primary school.

Hated that place...

The memories of dissatisfaction sparked just enough anger in my gut to get me through 'fifty-two', but when my arms finally gave out and my face fell down against the ugly carpet, leaving a small rug burn on the tip of my nose and top of my left brow, there wasn't even enough energy left in me to verbalize the sting.

Any way you sliced it, I was fuckin' beat; but hey, clearing out an entire school's worth of walkin' corpses was serious shit. It'd taken me a week and a half of room clearing and, while the fact that the place had obviously been empty when the shit had hit the fan was a huge relief, don't know that I'd've been strong enough to hack my way through a sea of youngsters, even if they were still vertical post-mortem, by the end of it, after clearing nearly a dozen rooms and securing the admittedly small school, a small part of me wished that the corpses had been of the smaller kind.

It'd've messed me up, for sure, but _fuck _if my damn arms didn't still feel like they were 'bout to fall off. The shittiest thing about it all was, rather _unlike _my master-fucking-plan to nab myself a solid base of operations had hinged on, the whole area was _still _within the path of a horde, which as I'd come to find out made somewhat regular sweeps up and down the nearby stretch of interstate every two weeks or so. I'd effectively drained the water from a puddle that just so happened to reside within a riverbed, and fuck me if it wasn't the rainy season, as the incessant shuffling and moaning of corpses from just outside verbalized with crystal clarity.

Still, the building _was _clear, and while its candidacy as a long-term home had been revoked, it'd still serve as a suitable buffer against the undead and their insatiable hunger for a few weeks, maybe longer if I was careful. I knew that one day I'd slip up, everyone does eventually, which would've been fine, had a pack of two-thousand plus corpses not patrolled the area. Dropping a plate on the ground and attracting a handful of the shuffling bastards would be a lot different than getting swarmed by an endless sea of 'em, with no escape or defense of any merit to hide behind.

As I silently lay there on the classroom floor, absently rubbing the tip of my nose and doing my damnedest to ignore the rotted mass passing me by, I cursed my pathetically limited magical ability for the billionth time. One fucking impervious charm'd be all it'd take to make any shit shack I stumbled across impenetrable. I'd hunt down some blueprints and schematics and transfigure myself a whole laundry list of weapons, supplies, and whatever the hell else struck my fancy. I wouldn't have to worry about getting' swarmed by corpses, having already been in a similar situation before and seeing how effective a firestorm could be. Even- even just my broom would've been fine. I didn't need to be able to do magic, just bein' able to leave and be somewhere else whenever I wanted would'a been more than enough. But no, of course, when your ass is getting kicked through the Veil in a hilariously unjust, underhanded, shitty fucking _scheme_, the last thing on your executioners' minds is, 'Wonder if this chap'll need himself a few fixin's for the road...' A pathetically slow and simple bit of shape-based transfig, coupled with my singular bastardized legilimency technique and a limited animagus ability made up all of my combined wandless talents, and while being able to make things pointy was great, it took a good few seconds before any change was even noticeable and the finer skills required to reproduce a firearm were so far away it didn't even bear thinking about. The sensory boost my partial whatever-the-hell-my-animagus-form-is granted me wasn't negligible, but like all partials it hurt like a bitch the whole time I used it, which blew. My legilimancy technique consisted of being able to interpret immediate surface emotions while maintaining eye-contact, something anybody who was gifted at reading people could replicate already, which made the ability feel like it wasn't even magic.

Still, I reasoned, rolling over onto my back and letting my frustrations, which seemed to always be roiling just below the surface these days, ebb away into exhaustion, dismissible as the few talents I'd maintained through my one way trip across the dimensional pond may seem to the average wizard, or indeed even a below average wizard, the fact remained that I'd managed to make it as far as I had due in part to the last proof I possessed that I came from somewhere very different. And while admittedly, lying dead-ass-tired on the floor of an abandoned school, with dried flecks of old-ass blood clinging onto the ends of my messy black hair and all over the rest of me as well, surrounded by a seemingly endless horde of undead, and without any company whatsoever to keep me from descending into madness...

Actually, no, it wasn't better than it sounded. It was the single worst moment of my entire life up to that point, and the ever present frustration itching just beneath my skin made itself known again upon this introspection. I wanted to scream, but knew that I couldn't, which made me want to even more, so instead I just laid there, silently cursing a million and one people and things, angry and alone, all night long, until finally not even the uncomfortable hardness of the floor or the still flickering embers of anger in my gut could keep me from blessed sleep.

My rest was peaceful, as it consistently had been since I'd impaled Tom's head with a magnificent spear of ice on my seventeenth birthday, oddly enough, although my awakening was anything but.

"Clear!" a voice, male, with more than a hint of southern twang in it, called out lowly. The sound of footsteps, intentionally soft and with an even gait, best as I could tell, marked the movement of whoever the man had called out to as the two made their way deeper into the room adjacent to mine. I could feel my heart thudding painfully in my chest as the door across from me creaked on its hinges. It was then, I realized, that whatever I was going to do, I needed to do it quick. If whoever that was, was clearing rooms than mine was obviously next and the complete lack of corpses, coupled with all of the blood smeared on the floor, was plenty odd enough that the chances of the two looters not being on high alert was slim to none. With a total of two encounters with people during my entire tenure in this new world under my belt, both of which had been fucking disastrous, I'd come to appreciate the fact that those who've managed to hold on this long aren't usually the kind of folk I mix well with.

With the element of surprise gone thanks to the school's obviously recently cleared nature, I'd decided that running was my best option. Slowly, I stood up, wincing in soreness, and grabbed my gear, which consisted of a singular black backpack with an assortment of outside pockets and a bedroll on top. I slowly slid the straps over my still aching shoulders and crept towards the door. While the prospect of losing my new digs rubbed me the wrong way, I was hardly going to go to war for the place, especially considering the poor property value thanks to the horde, which judging by the silence outside, must've passed sometime in the night.

Still, I was smart enough to recognize that what I wanted rarely amounted to two shits in the real world, and so the whole time I was checking if the coast was clear for me to bolt, a .45 tactical, fully loaded with the safety off and my finger on the trigger, rested comfortably in my right hand.

Through the glass I could see into the next room, where the two I'd heard a second ago were cautiously checking the room for any hidden dangers while still grabbing the more valuable supplies they came across. There was a man, with darker brown hair that hung below his eyes in the front, around his neck in the back, of scrappy build, with a hunting crossbow, as well as a woman, with dark skin and dreadlocked hair, which was held out of her face with a faded blue cloth, probably a bandana. The katana on her back gave me pause, and made me reconsider my earlier plan of trying to just sneak out via the door. With what looked like a long time hunter and a swordswoman not fifteen feet from me, both of whom were sure to be on high alert, I decided that the better option would be to slide open a window and kick rocks from there. I'd rather've left out the back door, as all that blocked it from the woods, my current destination, was a small staff parking lot, but I'd rather having to sneak around the building to get where I wanted to be than never getting there at all.

Mind made up, I crept back from the door, still facing it, keeping an eye on the two. The sight of them beginning to head back out of the room made my heartbeat double and panic take hold; fuck, fuck, _fuck! _ They were going to find me! They were going to try and rob me, or kill me, and then I'd have to kill them, and I just didn't think I could live a life where I was always alone except for when I was killing other people, but fuck I damn well knew that they were gonna be like the ones before, or before that, or way before _that_, and all of those people were awful to me, every single time, and I'd rather be the butcher than the cattle!

My whole face abruptly morphed into a scowl at that line of thought, and a sense of control returned to me. No, fuck that whole mess, Harry. Get a hold of yourself. Open the damn window and leave if you're so frightened of other people.

With my mini panic attack over and control of my limbs back, I quickly and silently turned around and sped to one of the large windows that ran along the left side of the room, facing the chalkboard. Quickly unlocking the hatch on the first window I reached, I then carelessly threw it open.

A horribly loud shriek rang out from the window, its metal frame rusted all to hell.

A thunderous bang was all I needed to know that the door behind me had been kicked and, while I'd still rather've run, I knew that I'd never've made it out of that window before a bolt would've found its home in my back. So, instead of trying to run, as soon as I heard the door bang open I was spun around with my .45 trained right between the blue-green eyes of the archer.

"Don't move!" I shouted, "If the woman comes in this room I'll fire."

I'd rather not've had to say stuff like that, but I'd had the drop on people before and lost it because there were enough of them to slowly move around and flank me. All it've taken was for me to dart my eyes in her direction once for the archer to have his opening and end me. Better to limit my targets unless I was ready to start firing, which I certainly was not.

"Daryl!" I heard the dark skinned woman cry out in alarm, although the man, Daryl, I supposed, remained focused on me entirely, save for a quick, "Don't," back to his partner.

"Let me make something abundantly clear here," I started, making sure to crush any quiver before it could reach my voice. The appearance of weakness was even worse than the truth of weakness, something I'd managed to grasp years and years prior, and which has served me well ever since. "You, do not want to be shot. I, do not want to shoot you. I do not want to hurt you, I do not want to rob you, fuck, I don't want anything from you at all, so why don't you ju-"

But the archer cut me off with, "Nothin'?"

I stopped talking and looked at him, confused, and a bit angry at the interruption.

"Well, I suppose if either of you have a nice cup of tea lyin' around, you can hand that shit over, but otherwise, no, I don't want anything from you two, except for you to lay down your weapons so I can leave out this window right here knowin' I ain't gonna find myself dead before I get outside. Fair enough, right?" I asked, although I hoped that the pistol trained on the man's head let him know that it wasn't really a question.

"No," he said after a moment of quiet tension, prompting me to begin using my legilimens technique, "how about, instead of that, _you _lay down _your _weapon?"

The cocktail of smug satisfaction and relief that swam beneath his eyes alerted me, just as much as the hammer being pulled back on a large revolver from outside the window did, to the fact that I'd been had.

"Fuck," I whispered out beneath my breath, slowly looking back until the cowboy hat clad man, his cleanly bearded face frozen in an angry scowl, was locking eyes with me.

"Drop the gun, kid," he ordered lowly, the tip of his large revolver shaking slightly, from either adrenaline or the revelation that I couldn't be a day over twenty, which I wasn't. Either way, neither his weapon nor his expression waivered any more, and thanks to my legilimency I could tell that he wasn't so at war with himself over my age that I'd be able to get out of this situation with my head still on my shoulders save for one way.

With that last nail hammering into the coffin, I had no choice but to drop my trusty pistol, the soft thud it made against the carpet singing out my surrender. Still keeping me in his sights, the cowboy climbed into the room, one leg at a time, until he stood barely two feet away from me.

I studied the man in silence, watching as his cautious blue eyes met the archers for a moment. When the archer, Daryl, gave a simple nod in response, the cowboy moved his gaze further to the side.

I was surprised to find the woman standing in the room, her wicked deadly looking katana, still stained red from an earlier encounter no doubt, balanced lightly in her hand.

It was then that I realized what a good thing it was that I hadn't decided to scrap with the two. I'd've been able to take the archer by surprise, but whether or not I'd have been able to move my aim to her before she'd drawn and divided me by two was up in the air.

"What's your name?" the cowboy asked lowly with authority, making me think that he may be the one in charge of the other two.

A sudden frog in my throat had me swallowing hard, and I caught the cowboy's heavy gaze tracking the bobbing of my Adam's apple, analyzing the tell and finding it less than comforting. His calloused hand gripped the big iron in his hand more firmly, and suddenly I could talk again.

"Harry!" I blurted out in mild alarm before recollecting myself. Illusion of strength, Potter, c'mon. "I'm Harry Potter. How 'bout you three? An archer, a samurai, and a cowboy, huh? I'm sure I know a joke where the three of you walk into a bar or somethin'…"

My joke seemed to fall pretty flat, but I could feel a fraction of the tension leave us, although I was still on my knees and the cowboy was still pointing his, if I had to guess, .357 magnum right at my face.

"Is there anyone with you?" the man on the safer end of the gun asked me, his eyes trailing off towards the busted up door ever so slightly before snapping back to me.

"No," I stammered out, my stressed brain suddenly needing to go over the last few days to make sure that I wasn't part of a group and just hadn't realized it or something, which was ridiculous of course, but I was feeling the full weight of the situation, which made thinking calmly and clearly rather difficult. "No," I repeated, more firmly and evenly, "I booked this place for one. Don't really do the whole 'group' thing that well. It's because I sleep walk, you see. Get into all kinds of trouble when you start moanin', stumblin' around, and not responding in the middle of the night. What luck, right?" I asked, reverting to my nervous tick: wisecracks.

"This whole place is clear," the archer, Daryl, I reminded myself, said to the cowboy. He turned his attention on me and skeptically asked, "You tryin'a say you cleared this place on your own? Or'd you find it like this?"

His eyes were narrowed and I didn't need my magic to recognize the noose he'd offered me to hang myself with. There was no way a hunter wouldn't be able to tell how fresh the blood smears on the floor were; he was giving me a choice between answering the less likely sounding truth or showing my deceitfulness and picking the more believable option.

Fuckin' mind games...

"Two rooms a day for the first two days, one a day for the next nine. I'm the kind of guy who likes to take things one step at a time, 'cept for with girls, of course," I answered back with halfhearted cheek, although the dark look that swept across the swordswoman's face had me stammering out, "N-not like that! Fuckin hell woman, it was a joke! I'm not even good with girls! Only ever kissed two in my whole life!"

Abruptly my face and cheeks heated up and I ducked my head, more embarrassed than I'd been in years, and frustrated with how poorly I was handling the situation.

A peal of laughter, light and short but still unmistakably laughter, rang out from the woman, and she casually sheathed her sword and pulled over a student chair, where she spun it around and sat down in it backwards. Apparently I wasn't the only one surprised by the woman's sudden change of mood, though neither of the two men standing looked quite as surprised as I felt. After a moment, the cowboy lowered his weapon and holstered it, taking a deep breath and exhaling slowly. Having myself done the same thing before, I knew he was trying to flush the last bit of adrenaline out of his system. A second later he too nabbed a chair, although he sat in it with widely spread legs which he rested his elbows on, letting his arms hang down.

Daryl, the archer, maintained his position standing and, if anything, looked to make himself more alert than before, as if to make up for the other two's relaxed stances.

A close knit group, then. Interesting.

"I'm Rick," the cowboy suddenly said, introducing himself as he sat up straighter in the chair. "This is Michonne," he continued, nodding towards the woman straddling her chair. She smiled widely in greeting, revealing a set of clean and straight teeth, which I found rather attractive. Her larger nose crinkled in amusement upon her noting my stare, and I quickly redirected my gaze, focusing on the archer in anticipation of his turn.

"Daryl," Daryl said, opting to introduce himself. The small amused grin it drew from Rick clued me in to his lack of offense taken, although his smirk was quickly hidden behind a more serious expression as he turned back towards me.

"Nice to meet you all," I tried, uncomfortable with the silence that had followed Rick's serious look.

My sentiment went unanswered, save for a quick smile from Rick that didn't even come close to his eyes and a scoff from Daryl. Michonne held her peace and continued to study me.

"Why'd you try to run?" Rick asked, his head cocked slightly to the side to show his curiosity.

"Seriously?" I asked with raised eyebrows, sparing an incredulous look over to Daryl's crossbow and Michonne's katana.

"No, no, no," Rick slowly replied, shaking his head from side to side with each 'no'. "You seemed plenty capable of handling yourself a minute ago. It just seems, to me," he continued with a dangerous smile, daring me to lie, "that after spending eleven days clearing this whole place out you'd be a little less willing to run off. Most people'd try and fight," he finished with a suggestive lilt in his voice, as if to suggest that I'd had ulterior motives.

"Yeah, well, in case you haven't noticed, _most people _are walking fuckin' corpses, and the way _I _see it, the only way to make it these days is to be smarter than _most people_," I said, angry at the non-stop accusations. I noticed Daryl bristle at by venomous tone, but Rick only raised an eyebrow and gave an ambiguous nod towards the floor. Not quite out of steam yet, I continued with, "I'd rather hit the road than get into a gun fight, which if you'd just say that out loud you'd realize how silly it is to even say something as obvious as that. I'd be lookin' for breakfast in the woods right now if the damn window had been oiled. Besides, I fucked up when I cleared this place out anyway. That damn horde on I-75 passes through here every other week or so. I was only gonna be here till I'd caught my breath; then I'd've booked anyway."

_That _caught their attention, and suddenly Rick was leaning in closer towards me, intently demanding, "A horde? How big? Which way were they headed? Was it south?!"

Realizing that my life may depend on my giving quick and competent answers, I tried to sound calm as I replied with, "Yes, a horde. I'd sized it around two thousand minimum. They seemed to just be following the interstate, near as I could tell, heading with it up and down. And yeah, it was south, but they've been doing this for a long time now. Unless you just moved somewhere you'd be in the clear, I'd figure."

That seemed to breathe some sense back into the three, although Rick still sounded just as rushed as he seemed to make up his mind on something and ask me, "How many walkers have you killed?"

"How many..." I started confused. "Oh, uh, well, tons, to be honest. Seems to be the kinder thing to do though I don't go outta my way or anything-"

"How many people have you killed?" he interrupted, and suddenly all three sets of eyes were trained on me. My mouth clicked shut and I couldn't stand but to avert my gaze off to the side, not having expected that question for some reason. "We're in a hurry," he pushed, leaning in closer to me. "How many?"

"At least seven," I whispered out with incredible reluctance, somehow unable to lie. "But maybe a few more that I don't know of..." I trailed off, never happy to go back to those places in my head.

"Why?" Rick asked with such gravity that the whole world may have been bearing down on me for all the pressure I suddenly felt. Completely unable to think up a single alteration I should make to my reasons, I just listed them.

"Self-defense, the first time. Was defending myself the next few as well. The last two," I ground out, the mere memory enough to make my blood boil in my veins till my skin itched and my teeth ached from clenching my jaw so hard, "vengeance."

A beat of silence passed by before Rick finished my abrupt interrogation with, "Did they deserve it?"

In retrospect I'd realize that he'd asked purely to dissect my answer, but at the time I'd taken it as judgment of my actions, something I didn't appreciate, thus my furiously whispered, "Every _fucking _one of 'em!"

With a blank face that shared no secrets, the cowboy hat clad Rick leaned back in his chair and stared at me in suffocating silence for an eternity, crushed down into just a few long seconds. When he decided he'd seen enough, he scooped my gun up from the floor and pinned the barrel of it against my forehead. I'd've frozen in fear, had I not still been feeling so angry. Two alarmed cries of, "Rick!" rang out from Michonne and Daryl, but the cowboy remained unflinching as he locked eyes with me.

"You're dangerous," he whispered out accusingly. I just stared back up into his eyes, seeing what I could see. "I can see it in your eyes, plain as day." Another long few seconds ticked by, before suddenly he pulled my gun away from my head and held it out towards me, handle first. "I can also tell you've got a lot of good in you. You need to understand now, though, that I've got people, who're more important to me than anything in the world, back where we're goin', and that, for as dangerous as you are, I'm more than that. I like you kid," he said with a shaky grin, clearly unsettled by something. "Please do not make me kill you."

His eyes hadn't moved from mine for the entire time, and, after another hard swallow, I found enough of a voice to say back, after I'd taken back and holstered my .45, "Yes, sir."

Then, with a nod to me and another to his two companions, who both still looked troubled, Rick walked toward the busted door and said, in a strained voice, "We'd best be back, then. Come on, kid."

"Yes, sir," I said, and then I followed him out.


	2. Chapter 2

"And you get a car!" I chuckled out mirthlessly, jabbing the end of my machete through the chain link and deep into a rather portly walker's forehead. My smile dropped a little as the dead weight on the other end of my blade slid to the ground, sending a spurt of old blood onto my boots with a sickening squelching sound. The too-darkish color of the vital fluid staining my boots held my undivided attention for a moment, until I managed to wrench my gaze away. Another moment later saw the same smile from before, a little wider now though, stretch across my face. "And you get a car!" Squelch. "And you, yes _you_, good sir, _you _get a car!" Squelch! "You're all getting cars!"

Squelch! Squelch! Squelch!

"Boy, you've got some serious issues, anybody ever tell you that?" a feminine voice called out from my right, neither kindly nor unkindly, more somewhere in the middle. However you'd describe her tone, the lightly tanned woman didn't seem that bothered by my somewhat morbid nonsense, thankfully. "I'm Karen. You're the one Rick brought back last night, right?"

"Ah," I started awkwardly, still rather embarrassed over getting caught. "Yeah- er, yes, I mean. I'm Harry, Harry Potter. It's nice to meet you. And sorry, about that, I mean. I'm not much of a morning person and I've got a pretty lame sense of humor," I apologized, acutely feeling the string by which my being allowed within the sanctuary of the prison dangled from.

It's walls, built during a better time, had been designed to keep bad people, a lot like the kind that were everywhere these days, inside, away from decent folk. It was just lucky that it worked so well in reverse too.

The facility was practically perfect, and I'd've been more than keen to make the penitentiary my new temporary home, except for the fact that I still didn't know much about the people who lived there or, more importantly, the people who were in charge.

My previous encounters may have been coloring my perception of the situation just a bit as well.

After I'd been brought back with Rick and the others the night before, I'd been informed that there was a council that functioned as the group's decision making body, and that, while I was free to stay the night and enjoy a late dinner of canned beans, I'd be brought before the Council the next day for further questioning.

"I'm surprised," Karen said, after wrenching her crowbar free from a corpse's skull and turning towards me.

I raised an eyebrow, motioning for her to continue, to which she said, tilting her head back in appraisal, "Well, you're just pretty young, is all. I'd heard through the grapevine that the new guy had some pretty mean chops, and that he'd managed to clear out a whole hospital on his own. I'd just pictured someone a little bit..." Karen's face, which had been squinted up slightly in scrutiny, abruptly adopted an expression of embarrassment. "Not that there's anything, ya know, I'd just- oh my that was really rude, huh?"

Her apologetic expression was genuine, and I hadn't had to deal with a contrite female in so long, it was a miracle that my tongue didn't tie itself into a knot in my fervent attempts to assure her that I'd taken no offense.

By the time I realized how much I was overdoing it, Karen's expression had changed again to one tinged with amusement.

"Anyway," I stumbled out, awkwardly trying to shift gears and regain control over myself, "the rumor you heard was pretty overblown; I'd taken my time and managed to luck my way through all've the rooms in a little private school. That's all." Now feeling a little better, in full control of my faculties, I couldn't help but toe the line and tease, "And I'm really not all that terribly young, Mrs. Karen. You can't judge a book by its cover, after all. Not all guys look like He-Man, ya'know."

Karen's eyes sparkled with mischief as she adjusted her gaze a bit away from me and said, in an overly sweet voice, "Is that so?" her lips stretched back in delighted amusement.

"Morning, beautiful," I heard someone with a rather deep voice chuckle out from behind me, where I turned and found a hulk of a man; his large, muscular body and full black beard at odds with his kind, amused eyes, the same darker chocolate color as his skin. "You teasin' this kid?" he asked in amusement, flashing me a genuine smile that only held a few wisps of caution in it. "Forgive her," he joked before leaning in and planting a short kiss on Karen's lips. "She's got a little bit of a reputation for findin' people's buttons. God knows she loves pushin' mine," he finished with a smile.

"M' not a kid," I quietly pouted, hamming it up a little and drawing a laugh out of Karen and a chuckle out her bear of a boyfriend.

"Either way," said apparent boyfriend offered, "it's nice to meet you. I'm Tyreese," he introduced, offering me his hand which I easily shook, glad that he seemed to have a handle on his obvious strength.

"Harry," I replied with a smile. "You come out here to help with the uglies?" I asked, bobbing my head back towards the walkers pressing up against the chain link.

Tyreese gave a small wince at the rotted faces before saying, "Uh, yeah, I'll stick around here. But, that's not why I came out, actually," he confessed, earning a raised eyebrow from Karen. "The Council's ready for ya, down in the library. You know where that's at?"

"Yeah," I replied, nodding my head nervously. "Yeah, I passed it on my way to bed last night, I remember."

I chewed on my lip for a moment, rehearsing the answers to the questions I was anticipating bein' asked, before I realized that the situation was growing awkward the longer I stood there in silence, prompting me to excuse myself and head towards the prison.

The drab, lifeless grey concrete interior of the prison bothered me a bit, having always feared being locked away in such a place, as I'd been threatened with so many times before in my youth. The way my footsteps echoed, reverberating softly in my ears no matter how quietly I tried to move, combined with the still lighting the long hallways managed to capture from their ceiling-high windows, had me quickening my pace despite myself.

I was in such a rush that I barely realized that I'd passed the library's dark wooden door almost a solid minute ago. A quick bit of backtracking found me back where I'd intended, and despite my even breaths, I did maintain a high fitness level out of necessity these days, I still took a quick moment to center myself. My breathing, though even, sounded oddly loud to my own ears, but I was sure I'd managed to school my features into the picture of calm and collected-ness that I'd wanted, and my not-wanting to be any later than I already was had me opening the door, despite my misgivings.

The prison's library was neither especially large nor especially small, although it seemed to leaned more towards the latter with its somewhat limited looking selection of books, which were mostly lining the shelves that hugged the furthest wall of the room. The rest of the library was open, with a few larger tables, save for a somewhat sectioned off children's area, in the rightmost corner.

Sat at the table closest to the bookcases was what I'd guessed to be the prison's 'Council'. An old man with a long, white ponytail and a full face of white hair, still solid looking despite his obvious age, noticed me first, and offered up a genuine smile.

A preacher, maybe?

He sat in the middle of one of the longer sides of the table, between a young Asian man with cautious eyes and a darker skinned woman, who very faintly reminded me of Mrs. Karen's boyfriend, Tyreese. There were only two more people sat at the table, on either of the skinnier ends, and I was surprised to find neither Michonne nor Rick among the gathering, having pegged the two as surefire leaders, though Daryl _was _at the table, looking as surly as before. Across from him sat the final member of the council, a short haired woman with teal eyes that looked to be somewhere in her late thirties. Of everyone sat at the table, I found the most caution pooling in her eyes.

Smart woman.

"Ah, may I?" I asked, with just a touch of awkwardness in my voice, motioning toward the sole remaining chair, which looked rather lonely all by itself on the unoccupied long side of the table. I allowed myself a brief moment of self indulgence by thinking the symbolism fitting, before getting over myself.

"Yes, yes, have a seat, please," the kindly looking old man insisted sincerely.

I paused for a moment, uneasy with how joyful the man seemed to be, until a quick look into his eyes revealed that his kindness was genuine.

"Hey," the archer, sharp enough to notice my hesitance, cut in, and I quickly took my seat in the bright wooden chair.

"Sorry about that," I mumbled out, age-old pride still choking my apologies, my _real _apologies, at least, in my throat. "It's a messed up world when a little unwarranted kindness starts settin' off warning bells, but I guess you," I motioned toward the most senior member of the table, "have just got an odd strength of character. Sorry if I offended you; s'just that I've been one of those flies caught by honey before. Lots of different ways of livin' out there, and most of 'em ain't too nice to stumble across. Especially the ones where people smile at ya."

The table as a whole reacted in anger, although their reactions ranged from a simple pursing of lips, like Daryl was doing, to the more emotive dark skinned woman, who had let out an angry breath through her larger nostrils and frowned with force.

Perhaps some of these people knew what I was talking about from personal experience...

"Well," the old man, seemingly the most talkative so far, began, "I'm sorry for what you've had to go through out there, but you'll be safe here. We've got a good community, with good, honest people."

I appreciated his words, although I couldn't help but notice that a few other members of the council were less convinced.

"Yes," the woman, with the smart, teal eyes and short, dark grey hair inserted smoothly, "we've managed to make something quite special here. Quite _precious_. Which is why, as you can understand, we do this; ask a few minutes of each new arrival's time to get a better understanding of everybody's..." the woman trailed off, and where I added 'threat level' to the end of her statement, she finished by simply saying, "Well, of everybody."

The preacher, as I'd dubbed him, and the chocolate skinned woman both seemed unhappy with the distrust I was being shown, but both the young Asain man and Daryl seemed unconcerned.

I was very far away from offended.

"Well yeah," I said, in an obvious tone, "I wouldn't even entertain the though of staying here if yall just let whoever you came across inside without so much as a pat down or a 'who are you?', so yeah, I understand." A second went by where the other five sitting at the table with me digested my words, and I noticed that the woman who'd been frank with me seemed pleased with my response.

"Well," the woman started again, "good, that's good to hear. We're not trying to step on anybody's toes, but it'd be a shame if those nice tall fences outside were the only thing keeping the bad out of this place," she said with a somewhat self-satisfied smile, making me think that perhaps her more cautious approach to the world may not be the most popular among the council. "Anyway, it's terribly rude of us to not have introduced ourselves," the woman continued, straightening up in her chair, though I didn't detect any genuine embarrassment from her. "I'm Carol," she said with a smile. "This is Glenn," she introduced, holding her hand out towards the young Asian man, who offered me a nod. "Hershel," she continued, motioning toward the kindly old man, who said, "Nice to meet you," in his ever so slightly grizzled voice. "Sasha," Carol indicated next, and the darker skinned woman offered up a large smile in greeting, which further reinforced the idea that she and Tyreese were related, to which I briefly smiled back. "And this is-"

"He knows who I am," Daryl interrupted, surly as before.

"Man," I started, with a cheeky grin already growing across my face, "you _really _don't like being introduced, do you?" My remark drew an irritated huff from the archer, and four confused expressions from the others. "Anyway, it's real nice to meet you all. I'm Harry, by the way."

Deciding that at least appearing to be open and helpful would be smart, I added, "What do you guys need to know?"

"Where were you before this," Glenn asked, somewhere between curious and cautious. I hadn't been giving him much attention, but it was obvious by his tone that he wasn't very trusting of strangers, which I counted as a good thing.

"Mostly just around this bit of the States," I admitted, rubbing my head at the reminder of how little progress I'd made in the last six months. "Recently, I was holed up in a school, bit north of here."

"Kid cleared the whole joint by himself," Daryl tacked on through his southern drawl, leaving the others to turn looks of appraisal on me.

Rather than take the humble route, I decided to be frank and say, "It was a small private kinda school, but yeah. I had a real knack for getting' into trouble before all of this started, and lucky me; it left me unusually prepared for this crap. Although..." I trailed off, studying the five survivors I was in the company of, "Yall seem to've made out okay too, despite the odds."

"You didn't seem to be doin' so well for yourself yesterday. Just lucky it was us got the drop on ya," Daryl disagreed, with a touch of mocking entering his voice.

Suddenly angry, I hissed out, "You think you had me dead to rights yesterday? You amateurs didn't even pat me down; it's _yall _who're lucky. I've been trading shots with people since I was eleven, and I am _very _fucking fast, and _very _fucking accurate. You guys aren't special for having gotten the drop on me, you're special for being cool enough that I let you walk away."

Flaring his nostrils in anger, Daryl, the prick, leaned forward in his seat and pointed a threatening finger at me, and started to growl out, "Listen up, you cheeky British shit-" before being cut off by Sasha's harsh, "That's enough!"

I scowled at the Georgian, already sick of the 'stupid brat' label I'd been put under, and matched his aggressive expression with one of my own.

"I said, that's _enough, "_ Sasha whispered out dangerously, to which I leaned back in my chair and shut my eyes, breathing in hard and telling myself to relax.

Normally I'd've been more calculated in my words, but it'd been so long, two months now, since I'd interacted with another human being, who wasn't undead and trying to eat me, at least, that I'd forgotten some of my cunning and patience in the protracted silence. Remembering my goal, remembering all the challenges I'd overcome in the past, I reopened my eyes with purpose, determined to lay out the proposal I'd come back with Rick and the others to offer.

"There is a reason I agreed to come back here," I began, breaking the uncomfortable silence permeating through the small library and drawing the Council's attention. "I need to get to England, no matter what, and I'm going to need your help to do it."

"Thought you just said you was fine on your own?" Daryl poked, though there was no venom in his barb. Still, Sasha seemed cross with the archer, and looked to be about ready to call him out again.

Not wanting the conversation to get derailed again, I was quick to respond with, "You're right, I did say that. But I'm not so full of myself that I'd believe I could make it all the way to the coast, let alone across the fuckin' Atlantic, by myself." Quietly, mostly to myself, I whispered out, "Not anymore, at least."

"What kind of help are you asking for?" Carol asked, her measured voice giving nothing of her inner thoughts away.

Nervous, I licked my lips, aware that this was the do-or-die moment of my shoddy pitch, before pushing on and saying, "I'd need gas, lots of it, and help making it up to the coast, maybe somewhere by Savannah. That's it. It's not a long list, but both things on it are more than I'd be willing to ask for if it weren't so important to me. I'd be good to find a boat there on my own, so yall's involvement would end where the water started. Now," I continued a little quickly, seeing a wave of unwillingness sweep across those at the table, "I'm not asking for charity." _That _earned more than a few curious looks. "I'm not in a hurry, what's waitin' for me there won't be going anywhere, _but, _it is _everything _that I make it back there alive."

Still a ways away from being won over by my plea, Carol once again took the reigns and asked, with a slight cocking of her head, "You say you're _not _asking for charity. That's good, I like that. But you haven't told us what you're willing to offer in exchange..." Here she stalled for a moment, preempting her peers' objections with, "Not, of course, that anybody's agreeing to anything just yet, but, I'm curious. Daryl says you're capable, but what does that mean, exactly, in this situation? What's a capable young man like yourself gotvthat's worth a deadly trip across the state and a drum-full of gas?"

The small prison library was quiet in the wake of Carol's question, each of the five council members interested to hear what I'd offer up in exchange for such a high demand. A lonesome bead of sweat trailed down my brow, helped along by the uncontested southern sun, and I steeled my nerves, preparing to say what I had to, the only thing I _could_.

"What do I have that's worth all've that?" I repeated, leaning back in my chair and holding each of the five council members' gazes for a few serious seconds each. "Nothing," I breathed out, tense as a man holding a hotwire fence. "There's nothing I have that even comes close to being worth the potential lives of anybody in this community. I can't even begin to imagine what the hell something that valuable would look like." With a sigh, I allowed myself to relax into my chair, slouching down a bit. "No, I don't have a hidden ace up my sleeve or some shit. All I can offer is my life, my gun, and my blade. You, all of you," I insisted, even nodding towards Daryl, "I can tell that you're good people, and not just by today's standards either. I figure I'll just have to do my best to earn yall's help, over time, the old fashioned way."

I couldn't help but grin mischievously at their dumbfounded expressions, pleased to've thrown 'em for a loop, not that that'd been my intent, exactly.

"Seriously?" Glenn asked, his dumbfounded expression especially hilarious.

"Yeah, mate," I reaffirmed. "Sorry. Wish I could say that I'd trade yall the cure to all've this or, I dunno, like the secret location of an untouched nuclear bunker, but I don't have anything like that. Hey!" I shouted defensively when the young Asian frowned at me, "At least I was honest. I'd seriously considered drawing up a fake treasure map leading to the coast. If anything, now would be the time to shower me with your gratitude for my honest, saintly behavior," I snarked, drawing more unpleased looks from the gathering.

"I think we're about done here," Hershel sighed out with a touch of exasperation, massaging the bridge of his nose tenderly. "Any other questions?" Hershel asked his peers, to which he only received shaken heads. "Harry, any questions from you?"

Deciding to accept the nonverbal, 'you can stay', I took a moment to look around the council in slight confusion, still curious about one thing.

"Yeah," I said, drawing the attention of the other council members back. "How come Michonne and Rick aren't part of you guys' little book club? I'd've pegged the two as bigger voices around here. They new too?"

Sasha, Glenn, Daryl, and Carol all averted their gazes a bit, obviously uncomfortable with the question, while Hershel simply replied with, "Michonne spends her time on the outside, gathering what she can for all of us. Rick... Well, Rick's busy these days, him and his boy tend to the fledgling little farm we've got out front."

"Rick's a _farmer_?" I questioned, more than a tad incredulous.

"Now," Hershel insisted gravely, "Rick's business is Rick's business. Besides," the old man continued, with a lighter tone and a smile on his white whiskered face, "what's so bad about being a farmer?"

Fair enough, I though, as the meeting officially adjourned, and I headed back for the fences.

**AN: Shorter chapter this time, but the next scenes would've seemed tacked on, so I'll save them for chapter three. Also, I wanted to say that I'm very touched by the support my readers have shown for this fic so far. Thanks, you guys. Also, I wanted to quickly remind everyone to favorite and follow Gumption, it's the easiest way to keep up with when I update. Finally, I read every review, and if you've got anything to say, criticism, ideas, or just a friendly 'nice chapter', I'd love to hear it. Until next time, ladies and gents. Stay cool.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Quick author's note, this chapter, and following ones as well, will contain graphic depictions of mature content. If you are offended by adult themes, please carefully consider before continuing. Note, there are no graphic sexual depictions in Gumption. Thank you for your time, enjoy.**

I listened from the ripped up backseat of the 1986 Suzuki Samurai, which I thought looked a lot like those square Jeeps they use to advertise on the telly back home, as Michonne ignored the quiet grumblings of Daryl as she drove us further toward our 'run' destination.

It was only the day after my little talk with the council, but I was determined to prove myself a valuable new member of the group.

The archer, as I couldn't help but think of him in my head, was less than pleased with our little team's composition, and kept muttering darkly about the dumb sense it made to have not one, but _two, _as he called us, 'newbies' along for the run.

While Bob, the thin-but-fit African American who was sitting next to me, just gave a big smile at the Georgian's attitude and held his peace, I went the other route and did my best to look as smug as possible, drawing upon all the arrogant, educated, British snobbery I could muster, despite being neither especially arrogant, nor properly educated, and honestly hardly British either.

Unlike those who'd served under me, I had never attended a traditional magical school, and while I hailed from the United Kingdom, my training had taken me all over the globe. If not for my guardian's strong English heritage, I doubt I would've picked up much of an accent at all.

"It's just dangerous, is all I'm tryinna say!" I heard from up front, the sudden standoffish words from Daryl drawing me from my inner musings.

Seeing Michonne's midnight colored hands tighten dangerously around the Japanese car's steering wheel, I decided to hop in and say something before she _really _reached her wits end.

"Look, man," I began, stretching out my back absentmindedly and yawning, "It's not-" I continued, pausing again briefly to finish my eye watering yawn, "It's not like this is our first rodeo or whatever. I _was _out here on my own for a good little bit, y'know? And it's like Mrs. Karen said before, Bob here was in the army, as a medic, too!" I paused to level a flat glare at the southern boy before pointing at him and saying, "I for one am glad he's here. Just thinking about whatever back water voodoo you'd try and use if one of us got hurt seriously makes me nervous."

The tan skinned archer turned quickly in his seat to threateningly point one of his fingers at me, the sleeveless vest showing off his superiorly muscled arms.

"You just think you're hot fuckin' shit don't ya?"

"Enough, both of you," Michonne growled out, speeding the car up a few miles per hour in her aggravation. "If I have to listen to any more crap I'm going to stop this car and kick _both _your asses! Now just shut up and let me drive."

I didn't feel too good about getting bitched so easily by the fierce samurai, and before I could help it I was screwing my face up behind her back, something I quickly noticed Daryl doing out of the corner of my eye as well. A long, awkward moment passed between the two of us, and we both studied the other with disbelieving expressions, ignoring Bob's sniggering in favor of sizing each other up. Finally, Daryl broke our stalemate and turned back around, more evenly saying, "I already figured that both of yall was fine to be outside, what I meant was that there's a big difference between goin out here by yourself, and goin out with a group. If I'm gonna risk my neck watchin' out for you two, it'd just be nice to know yall are gonna do the same, s'all I'd meant. "

"R-right," I stuttered out, taken aback and suddenly aware of the fact that maybe I'd misjudged the surly archer. Asshat he may be, but I couldn't help but respect his pack mentality. "Well, it's true enough that I haven't done anything like this for a while now, with a group, that is." I turned my head to look out the window, not really paying attention to the greens of the healthy leaves or the light browns of a thousand thousand tree trunks, and mumbled, just loud enough for them to hear, "I'll just follow you guys' lead."

Michonne relaxed her grip on the poor Suzuki's steering wheel, Daryl huffed and looked out his window as well, and Bob just let another wide, amused smile spread across his face.

The rest of the drive passed by in peaceful silence.

"Bob, you're with me. You two go check the drug store, we'll be hitting both the gun shop and the semi truck since they're closer. That'll have us getting back here at around the same time, if all goes well," Michonne quietly called out, the four of us having unloaded a few minutes ago upon reaching the edge of our destination. We were parked on Main Street, with a good few brick and mortar buildings, all a good three or four stories tall, hugging us tightly on both sides. Our respective destinations were both a good ways away still, and I could tell that leaving the car so far behind rubbed Daryl and Michonne, and even Bob, the wrong way, but the gridlock before us was unpassable by vehicle. In response to the obstacle, we'd all agreed that a two-two split would be the best way to hit the places we were aiming for and still be quick enough to meet our timetable. We weren't in a rush for any particular reason, but loitering around out in the open, especially in towns, was never a good idea these days, and thus, the pairings.

Whatever protests Michonne was expecting, as was obvious by the already firming expression on her face, she was to be surprised, instead, when I flashed her a toothy grin and Daryl simply nodded, already notching his crossbow in preparation for our little scavenging mission.

The 'I'll be damned' look on the attractive samurai's face had me grinning, but soon enough, and after a playful shove from our team medic, a thought I found equally amusing and reassuring, I too made my last minute battle preparations, tucking in my shirt, tucking in my laces, inspecting my .45 tactical, the usual.

"You two sure you got the lay of this place?" I heard Bob ask. He was looking up at the brick storefronts around us, no doubt discomforted by the general sameness they all shared in appearance. Though not too worried myself, I didn't really blame the ex-Army medic for his nerves; the idea of getting turned around and lost in this kind of place, where any threats could easily trap you within the unyielding brick walls and narrow streets, was less than pleasant.

"It's okay," Michonne said evenly, sparing Bob a look as she slid her katana back into it's sheath, pleased to see its still pristine condition holding up. "Daryl and I were with the group that scouted this place out in the first place, so it'll be fine. It would have been better if the highway we'd taken before wasn't overrun though, we could have driven all the way into town and avoided this mess otherwise."

Bob nodded, reassured, and said, "Well, lead on then, I'm good to go if you are."

Michonne just gave the friendly medic a nod and headed out. I watched as they quietly moving through the cars, which were all over and very close together, with some even being parked on the tiny sidewalks, before Daryl's grunt had me looking away. The archer had his crossbow angled towards the ground, with both of his hands holding it, like a rife, as he began to walk, wordlessly heading in a direction perpendicular to the one Michonne and Bob had taken. I silently fell into step a pace and a half behind and to the side of him, as I'd been trained, keeping my tan and black .45 in its holster on my hip.

"So," I began quietly almost a solid fifteen minutes later, having grown bored of the silence, "you from around here?"

Daryl paused to turn back and level a deadpan stare at me.

"Gee," he drawled out, "whatever gave ya that idea?"

"Well," I began, puffing up defensively, "maybe you could've been from- from Florida- oh! Or Alabama! Yeah, I could see you bein' from Alabama."

This time, Daryl didn't even bother to turn around when he bit out, "Well I ain't from neither of those places, and what do you even know about it, huh?" he asked, suddenly incredulous. "Posh sod like yourself probably couldn't tell a Jersey girl from bayou boy."

I stopped for a second, lamely thinking, 'bayou boy?' before snorting and looking around. I didn't see anything worrying in the ever present sea of cars, and so decided to quip back, "I'm sure there's a story there, oh broke-back archer, but I'll have you know that I happen to have a keen eye for languages, and an even _keener _eye for women."

Daryl just snorted in amusement, keeping a scanning eye on our slowly changing surroundings, diligently making sure that nothing managed to sneak up on either of us while we pushed forward.

A sudden burst of gunfire, loud, echoing, and unexpected, ripped through the streets, startling me so bad I nearly jumped. Controlling myself immediately, I focused my poor animagus talents on, ignoring the dull pain it caused behind my eyes and in my ears.

Looking up, Daryl and I shared a quick, panicked look, already having ducked down between the black sedan and silver SUV flanking our sides, when I quickly whispered out, "Those shots weren't aimed at us!"

Narrowing his eyes till they were little more than slits, something I distantly guessed helped his marksmanship with his chosen crossbow, Daryl growled out, more pissed than scared, "Michonne an' Bob are over that'a way, and ain't neither of those two got full auto's." He lunged up from his squat, snarl on his face and loaded crossbow in his hands. "Come on!"

I ran after the Georgian, distantly impressed by how nimble the man was on his feet, but far more focused on the task at hand; getting my new people out. A dark, self-serving piece of me couldn't help but sneer out that I was only willing to help because it'd be better for me and my self-imposed mission, but despite all the darkness I'd gone through, enough of me was left that I truly _did _want to find and protect the kind medic and beautiful samurai, despite the danger and regardless of the boon it'd grant my standing amongst my new group.

Daryl vaulted over a rusted out Cadillac and I drew my old .45 tactical, and then, as one, we turned the last corner separating us from where the gunshots had originated.

Even as the agitated archer and I began more stealthily combing our way up the street, heading towards what I could only guess was the semi-trailer the others had been after first, I couldn't help but marvel at the fact that not a single corpse had made its way to us yet.

Still, disconcerting as that oddity was, upon catching the sudden stiffening and stilling of Daryl's bare shoulders, my thoughts were forced elsewhere. The southern man had spotted something on the ground, and, peering around his still frame, all the while keeping an eye on our surroundings, I saw what had so suddenly stopped the man.

A lazily expanding pool of crimson was on the ground, the viscous liquid puddled out to the size of a large dinner plate.

Corpses didn't bleed anything but _black_.

Suddenly, a muffled, distant, "Woo-wee! Haha, keep on now!" sounded out, only audible due to the dead silence weighing down on the car-crowded street.

Daryl seemed to just barely catch the far-off noise, and a look of confusion, in the form of furrowed eyebrows, briefly passed across the archer's face, before, in half a heartbeat, the most unholy fire I'd seen in years lit behind the man's eyes.

Whatever he did next was lost to me, however, for in the instant clarity dawned on him, it dawned on me as well, and then I was in motion, my slightly raggedy boots pounding loudly against the unyielding blacktop as I covered a half dozen meters in a second, and the rest of the distance between me and my destination in another ten.

Arriving at the sound's origin, the very gun store Michonne and Bob had surely been headed towards before falling under ambush, I, with deceptive strength, put all my outrage and weight into a single, booted foot, and _kicked_, instantly splintering the thin blue door near the handle and sending a loud bang through the store.

Long, hard earned experience, a dangerous cocktail of adrenaline, rage, and anxiety, and maybe a little surge of magic circulating through my brain's soft, squishy, pink matter, all came together to make it seem, to my wild, killing-green eyes, as if reality had slowed to a crawl.

In this familiar, beloved state, I allowed myself a moment, whatever amount of time that really translated to for others was of no concern to me, to observe.

And so I did.

I observed the walls and shelves of the store on my right, barren of any firearms, most likely having been looted near to the bone by desperate souls long before us. We'd been expecting something of the sort, but one never knew when a lone pistol or two, or even better, a box of ammunition, would lie overlooked, buried beneath an overturned table, or under old paper.

Continuing my scan, I also observed a group of men, three in total, standing around another, more familiar, man, gleefully observing something. Two of the three men were white, with similar, rugged goatees, although one's facial hair was red, like the buzzed hair on his head, while the other's was black, although his head had no hair, though he was obviously shaven, and not bald. The last of the three standing was, unlike his companions, of a slightly darker skin tone, and being this far south I couldn't help but think his race to be Hispanic in nature. Also unlike his companions, this man was clean shaven, with a small cropping of dark hair atop his head. All three men were of fit body, I noted, and the ease with which the red headed man and his darker skinned friend easily restrained Bob, who was knelt between them, despite his struggling's, spoke of some kind of strength.

Not that, with the thickly oozing hole in his leg, Bob was able to put up much of a fight.

The three men and Bob were all looking towards the, from my perspective, leftmost part of the room, and so I, too, looked.

There, with one hand fisted around his pants and boxers, which were bunched up just below the man's pale, bare bottom, and the other hand wrapped painfully around a group of black dreadlocks, was the room's last male occupant, barring myself, of course. In front of him, forcefully bent over a solid, wooden table, with her sensible brown capris and undergarments shoved down around her ankles, with the _single _most _furious _glint of murder plain as day in her wide, brown eyes, and all the pain in the world promised in the very specific set of her angrily snarling face, was Michonne. Despite her obviously broken arms, I could tell that I'd walked in on what would surely be the beginning of her counterattack; the wiggling of her fingers, lightly coated in blood, probably where she'd try to stop Bob's bleeding, reaching and _stretching _with all her strength, toward a short, overly sharpened down pencil.

I caught the briefest glimpse of her generous bottom and the pink of her most private bits before, finally admitting to myself that yes, there was but a single way all this would end, I closed my left eye and took aim.

I put a bullet through the beautiful black samurai's would-be rapist's calf, sending a sudden red glob of blood, with a few bright white chunks of the man's shin bone as well, splattering against the dirty floor. Before the man's pale ass had even hit the floor, I'd moved on, taking quick aim and removing most of the lower jaw and teeth from the dark haired man next, the one who hadn't been holding one of Bob's shoulders, with a trinity of well aimed pistol fire.

I wanted to pause, to enjoy for a moment the glorious red sprays that had so quickly begun to decorate the room, to see what expressions the looks of shock on the men's faces would turn into, if only I'd give them enough time to react. However, I felt the world beginning to speed back up, as my reality yielded more and more to everybody else's, and so I returned to my righteous work.

With a quick blink on the way, my eye was getting dry, I adjusted my aim again, unloading into the chest of the red headed man next, thankful for my gun's fifteen round magazine as I allowed a little bit of frustration over not getting to properly enjoy the bandits' horror out via a quick five round burst that left the most delightful mess on the far wall.

I could tell that I'd gotten sloppier since the last time I'd _really _shot when, upon turning to the final, Hispanic gentleman, I saw that he'd had enough time to get his hand onto his still holstered gun.

Still, I wasn't _too _upset at my slowness. After all, there was a _world _of difference between a holstered gun, like the last bandit's, and an unholstered gun, such as mine.

With six shots remaining I reaped a bloody path up the nicely bronzed man's body, shooting out his ankle in a such a way that the ends of his thick, white, Achilles tendon could be seen sticking out of the back of his foot. His kneecap, hidden away by a pair of jeans, which I distantly noted had been in fantastic condition, with their blues being really vibrant, went next, in a mostly hidden- but _very _audible, fashion. I wanted to see if I could blow his hand all the way off with just the four bullets I had left, but figured that, _just _in case, I'd better save at least a few rounds.

It'd be terribly embarrassing if someone were to come rushing in from out back and I didn't have any pretty little bullets to kill them with.

And so, with a mental sigh, I shot the, only now beginning to fall, man, right in one of his rather beautiful blue eyes, admiring the way his head, in volcanic fashion, erupted, spewing gore against the store's back wall artfully.

Time finally came back to me, although once again with a little less of my sanity, and the room was suddenly silent, save for Michonne and Bob's ragged breathing and the sound of four bodies hitting the floor.

In the next instant, the man, who I now noted had hazel eyes and light blonde hair, began screaming for all he was worth, cradling his barely-hanging-on leg with big, hysterical tears pouring down his face.

Ignoring him, I swiftly holstered my beautiful .45, cleared the distance to Michonne, closed my eyes, and pulled her pants back up. I opened my eyes back right as Daryl finally caught up and came hurtling through the broken down door thunderously, crossbow scanning the room in an instant. Upon noting the three dead bodies and the horribly wounded man, Daryl instantly had his bow trained on me, though with but a single extra look, he even more quickly had retrained his bow on the mass of quivering flesh near my feet. Another quick look in Michonne's direction had Daryl loosing an arrow on the man in silence, pinning him to the wooden floor through his middle.

As his cries ramped up in volume and intensity, I did my best to quickly tend to a now unnaturally silent Michonne, pushing through her wince as I maneuvered her around till she was sitting on the table. Her capris were still riding a bit too low, and despite myself I noticed a few black curls denoting the top of her womanly area. I was quick to lean forward and tuck my chin in between her shoulder and neck, for assured privacy, and give her pants another insistent jerk up, even as the sounds of a vicious stomping began sounding out behind me.

Nobody protested much.

Actually, nobody said _anything_, for a few seconds at least, the sound of Daryl beating the pinned man both too much and not enough noise all at once.

Not knowing the first thing to say to the dark skinned woman, I opted not to even try, and instead simply slung her, as gently as possible, though the action would still be well described with the word 'slung', over my shoulder, taking care to bump into her purpling arms as little as humanly possible.

She gave absolutely zero protest, which, once again, I didn't have the first clue as to whether that was a good or bad sign, and merely allowed herself to be carried.

"Daryl," I called as I turned around, grabbing Michonne's discarded katana from off the floor. The sight of Daryl, having literally beaten his hands bloody against the would-be, and probably had-been-before, rapist's face gave me no pause and quickly said, "Grab Bob and let's go."

The man seemed to barely hear me at all, and instead wound back for another round of violence, obviously far from tired of punishingly smashing his fists into the mauled man's face. Sympathetic but unwilling to indulge the archer, I quickly barked out, "Enough! Leave him, I made sure not to get his buddy in the face. Let the fucker feast, just in case hell ain't real. Our medic's shot and our samurai sprained her wrists, they're the priority."

It took a moment, and one more nose-crunching parting shot, but Daryl ended up moving off the still impaled man quickly enough, scooping Bob up without much hassle into a fireman's carry.

I took the briefest of seconds to take stock of my group, and by then I _was_ thinking of them as _my _group. I couldn't see Michonne's face, but the way she allowed her body to lay limply across my, admittedly thin and probably uncomfortably bony, shoulder, probably didn't bode too well, but there was less than little I could do for her at that moment.

Bob seemed ever so slightly less shell shocked than I'd expected him to be, even acknowledging the time it'd been since the dead rose and that most people were made of tougher stuff these days. Still the tired, haunted look in his eyes told me, clear as if I'd used my fledgling legilimency on the man, that he'd probably be more than happy to crawl up into a ball and get black-out drunk at the first opportunity.

Not so well, then.

Daryl, in contrast, to both Michonne's emotional vacancy and Bob's desire to forget, seemed to want nothing more than to flay the skin from the pinned rapist's bones.

_That_ reaction, I understood perfectly.

However, I also understood that, even if a passing horde _had _taken this town's corpses into its fold, as I was beginning to suspect, the number of loud ass gunshots that had been let off just _couldn't _bring anything good.

And so, with as reassuring a pat to Michonne's back as I could manage, I headed out of the store, stepping over the splintered wood and tiny pieces of errant gore that had somehow found their way _towards_ where the bullets had come from. Daryl, after one more kick, which had been awkwardly delivered thanks to Bob's form across his shoulders, along with his passenger, also stepped out, standing beside me beneath the blistering Georgian sun, in silence so absolute you'd be forgiven for thinking nothing worth note had gone down just a few minutes prior.

A low rasping growl called out from behind us, within the store, and the accompanying shrieks of fear and desperate blubbering acted as the signal for our quartet, bruised, bloody, brooding, and broken, the lot of us, to begin heading back towards our car.

The sounds of ripping flesh and mangled screams sang out as we slowly trekked down the crowded southern street, the heat waves radiating up off the black top and car hoods adding to the despondent, dreamlike mood that settled over us like a blanket.

It set a good mood for introspection, I found.

During those inner thoughts, I came to accept something, as we finally reached our shitty little car and began piling in.

For better or worse, these were my people now, and everybody else had better just watch the fuck out.

**AN: Thank you for reading up to this point, the support so far has been very touching. I'd like to take a moment to address a few, completely valid, questions I've had asked in relation to Gumption. No Spoilers.**

**An anonymous reader asked me, basically, what the point was if Harry didn't have his magic, and what the difference was between Harry here and an original character. As far as the magic goes, in this case, I found that, while planning Gumption, it would be impossible to write half as compelling a story if Harry had full access to his magic. Do yall remember when Albus, surrounded by a **_**horde **_**of undead, managed to summon a great firestorm, while poisoned, and wipe them all out? Pretty bad ass, and fine, when there are forces to meet such powerful good guys, but in the Walking Dead? No such supernatural or advanced technological foe exists. I'd quickly grow bored of writing that, and you'd probably quickly grow bored of reading it. Oh look, a horde/gang/godzilla is headed straight for us! Instant teleportation + invisibility + unforgivables + take your pick = a boring story and protagonist. I'd like to think that, even with only three talents (four now?!) I can still manage to make Harry satisfyingly skilled while still not boringly invulnerable.**

**As far as what separates Harry from an OC, well, I would like to think that there is more to the Boy-Who-Lived than just his magical abilities.**

**Also, a few have expressed concern over Harry's lack of 'proper' English. I'll just say that, as you've seen, he's from a bit of an AU here, and also, not everybody from the UK talks prim and proper (although fair enough ol' HP was well enough spoken in canon). I hope you can come to accept him and his more rounded out way of conversing.**

**Any questions, comments, reviews, favorites, follows, and/or alerts would be welcomed with open arms. Until next time!**


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